


The Ways of Love

by LaDolceMia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Crack, Humor, John is a hetrosexshull dammit!, M/M, Sherlock should always be naked, This is apparently what happens when I have fruit for breakfast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-12
Updated: 2012-08-12
Packaged: 2017-11-12 00:09:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaDolceMia/pseuds/LaDolceMia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><br/>The courtship rituals of the raven-crested consultio detectivis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Great liberties have been taken with ornithological facts - probably not a good idea to use this fic for a report on the mating behaviors of Bornean wildlife.
> 
> Kudos or comments are always warmly appreciated, as they let me know if I'm pleasing readers, which is something I do enjoy doing.

~

  
_The ways of love be strange, tis true, among men as well as beasts._

  


Of course he's starkers. And holding– 

A pineapple.

Why wouldn't he be? This is 221B. Eyeballs in the microwave, explosive chemicals aside the Assam. Naked consulting detectives standing in the middle of the living room brandishing fruit.

" _Draft_ , John." Suppressed twinge of annoyed drawl in the honeyed voice; he's had to repeat himself. First one must've gone unheard over the sudden loud buzzing in John's ears. God, the firelight makes his skin look so– Oh. The um. Door. Yes. Right. 

Turning away to pull the creaking oak closed is easy enough; turning back to face.. the situation.. a bit more challenging. Where does one look, really? Eyes – nowhere else, _eyes eyes eyes, John Watson_ – but. It's difficult. All that Sherlock is so– distracting.

"You ah..." 

The angular face stares back at him, amiable, unfazed.

John feels decidedly fazed.

"You're um..."

Black eyebrows lifting in expectation, he smiles, tilting his head suggestively in the direction of the pineapple he holds aloft in his left hand. Appears to– wave it– just a tad.

"Shh... erlock. Is this– some kind of experiment?"

"Yes!", seaglass eyes lighting up as though John's gotten a very important deduction right.

"O...kay. Right then. Well, I'll um.. leave you to it."

 

Fumbling his way hastily toward the stairs for a mad dash to his room, he doesn't see the crestfallen expression wash away the hopeful smile.


	2. Chapter 2

It shouldn't be quite as startling, really, a second time 'round.

It is.

Smiling as brightly as yesterday. Every inch as naked as yesterday. Standing– although it's not exactly just standing, is it? 'Posing' isn't quite the word either, but in any case, he's _very very there_ , in the kitchen doorway, holding– "Is that a pomegranate?"

He nods happily.

"Well... that's..."

Wants tea, desperately, but there's precisely _zero_ possibility that he's going to walk over there and–

Up, John. Look _up_. And he does, finally, but it's too late. His eyes are already burned full of long white thighs and silky dark–

Surprised that Sherlock hasn’t told him to close his cartoonishly hanging open mouth.

"You're gaping, John."

He's also sucking air hard through his nose which he's suddenly realizing with alarm is bringing him the _scent_ of Sherlock's exposed body – clean and warm and threaded through with a faint note of something intimate and musky that makes saliva rush into his mouth so abruptly that it's the work of several awkward seconds before he can swallow, make room for the words.

"I– I have to go out– I just remembered I have an um... there's a thing I need to..."

It's not frantic backpedaling that he's doing as he shoves his arm haphazardly back into his coat sleeve and stumbles his way towards the foyer. It's something much more dignified than that.

The distant clang of the front door slamming behind him as he flees just covers the disappointed sigh upstairs.


	3. Chapter 3

It is, in all respects, a perfectly ordinary Wednesday. Save for the fact that he's absolutely, blindingly, and full-on stomach churningly terrified to go home. 

 

Heads in the fridge; fine. Bag of thumbs in the bathtub; all well and good. Naked flatmate holding fruit? Disturbing. 

He's not a prude, of course. Had his share of naked male camaraderie in the Corps, at uni. It's perfectly normal. Natural. 

But this is–

Different.

He's not gay – not that there's anything wrong with being gay. It's just that he's not. He's really, really not. 

Which makes it confusing. That he can't stop thinking about Sherlock, can't stop–

Touching himself when he does. 

Bedroom door barely clicked shut that first time before he'd shoved trousers to knee and had himself off in his pants with just a few hard rubs of the heel of his hand, right where he stood. Legs trembling, sweat roaring out of every pore, like some kind of fever. 

And then yesterday, nearly sprinting down Baker Street, ending up in a pub where he’d gotten so thoroughly pissed that when he came stumbling back into the flat he very nearly– well he wouldn’t have actually _done anything_ of course, but he did pause. Listen quietly for a moment to the sleep-slow breathing on the other side of the door. Touch his fingertips briefly to the wood. 

Clearly it won't do, coming home to a nude, fruit-bearing Sherlock. Even just two days of this is two too many. He has to put a stop to it. Resolved, he clips the last patient file into the folder and ponders glumly how much can happen to one’s sanity in only forty-eight hours. Perhaps he should stop by the psych ward on his way out.

Desk cleared, each volume of _The Lancet_ squared evenly on the shelf, and every other possible means of faffing about is exhausted; there’s nothing for it but to screw his courage to the sticking place and drag himself away from the lingering he's done for– a full hour, the clock over the door tells him– after his shift ended.

 

As the light evening breeze greets his face in the wake of the automatic doors' familiar _whoosh_ , he realizes with a disquieting chord of panic that some small part of him is hoping that he– gets one more look before he puts an end to it. 

And maybe that "small" is a comforting lie.


	4. Chapter 4

The heavy black door swings open onto soft silence, and he tiptoes in, daring a breath of relief; no lights on above, and when he reaches the landing, he's not greeted by the disorienting spectacle of a couple of meters of lean, pale flesh displayed like some bloody perfect Greek statue.

Letting some of the tension out of his body with an audible sigh, he ambles into the blissfully Sherlock-free kitchen and sets the tea going. An anxious glance around reveals no dangerous fruit lurking in the shadows, and as the flame glows cheerfully under the kettle, he relaxes, feels the knot in his chest ease: Just the thing for this problem, a little rest, a little head-clearing. An evening alone to put some distance between recent images and the conversation he'll need to broach.

He's certain that by tomorrow, more sensible thoughts will’ve edged out the messy little heap of conflicting urges currently making ransack of his frothing mind. Nodding decisively to no one at all, he collects biscuits and napkin and teacup with the first calmness he's had all week. 

The tiny metallic click of the lamp echoes gently in the quiet and he’s halfway into his beloved chair before reconsidering – probably best to take repast in the safety of his room, to avoid any "surprises." Snagging his current paperback on the way out, he climbs the worn stairs with a biscuit balanced between his teeth and his hands full of tea and tin and rubbishy novel. 

All the tea's fault, really: If it hadn't been sloshing so precipitously, he wouldn't have been looking down.

Wouldn't, perhaps, have been caught _quite_ so off guard.

 

By Sherlock – naked of course, because _apparently he's completely given up clothes for some reason, god help me_ – standing in front of his door holding a peach.

 

To his credit, John doesn't technically _drop_ the biscuit.

One snapped half hits the floor with a tiny _crchh_ , the other lays sandily in the sudden desert of his mouth.

Sherlock's eyes are very glossy in the dim light.

"Shfghlok–" Can't be arsed for etiquette; an efficient, if inelegant, dislodge of the thing into the napkin.

"I think we should– talk."

Slight wilt of smile creeping in at the edges, his _au naturel_ interloper nods minutely, uncertain.

"We um–" Realizing the absurdity of delivering this speech whilst clutching tea accoutrements, he bends carefully in the crowded space ( _sideways, man, sideways_), tucking the provisions next to the baseboard, taking in a steadying breath before rising. 

The brisk clap of his hands on his thighs as he stands back up more about steeling himself for the conversation than dusting off the errant crumbs from his trousers. 

"Listen, Sherlock. You know I don't mind your experimenting in the flat, but this–" Doesn't know exactly where to point; settles on a vague vertical gesture encompassing his unclad frame.

"I mean, do you really have to be so... so... _naked_?"

"Well, I don't have feathers."

Of course. That explains everything.

"Birds don't wear clothes."

It's true, they don't.

"I don't– what exactly has that got to do with..."

"The Black-breasted Fruit-hunter of Borneo."

"The... 'Black-breasted Fruit-hunter'?"

"Yes."

"Of Borneo?"

" _Yes_." Touch of characteristic huff now; annoyed, apparently, by John's inability to grasp what is clearly a very reasonable and understandable and not at all mad as six hatters situation.

"They present a variety of gifts, usually fruit, to a potential mate."

"An um. Potential mate."

"Well, Tesco doesn't carry rambutan or salak fruit, _obviously_. But given the geographic disparity, it would be rather unfair of you to expect that kind of accuracy."

He can't deny it; that _would_ be unfair. 

"So what exactly is the uh– experiment?"

"I'm attempting to replicate their results."

 

Their results. 

 

He's attempting to. Replicate their results. Casting his eyes down to get a moment to think clearly, rationally, he gets a view of slim white toes that does nothing at all for _rational_. Something is happening in his brain, and he doesn't know what, but he does know that the sight of Sherlock's bare feet on the wood makes him feel something, deep in his torso. Tenderness, maybe. 

And ankles, calves, and knees are unfair, really; how can anyone be so– _lovely_. Well there it is. He thinks Sherlock's "lovely." He's gone and gotten himself a new retort for the next j'accuse: _We're not a couple! I just think he's lovely._

He's got to stop at the knees because if he keeps going up, it's all going to spin out of control and he'll say something utterly daft, something completely untenable, something blurty and barmy and dangerous like–

 

"So what does the ah, potential mate do? To... signal acceptance?"

 

It's the small step, maybe, fully into Sherlock's personal space that stirs naked flesh in its nest of soft curls.

John doesn't have to glance down to know it; he can hear it, in the scraped catch in his voice.

"The– The behavioral pattern that’s evolved is that the mate... eats the offered fruit," the last words trailing to nothing more than a mesmerized whisper. So close he feels the moisture of the ragged breath that follows them drift onto his forehead. 

"I see. Well, we wouldn't want to deviate from an 'evolved behavioral pattern', would we?"

The hand with the peach since fallen to his side in the daze of desire, Sherlock can only nod, staring down at him in something that looks an awfully lot like awe.

Extending his fingers, John lets his thumb drag softly across the smooth bare hip as he reaches, thrills when he hears what the light touch does to him, the unrestrained moan shooting a white spike of desire into his veins.

Curling his hand around Sherlock's trembling one, he raises the fruit to his mouth, bites, savoring the bright wetness as he watches the juice run over their nestled fingers. 

 

It's the best thing he's ever tasted.


End file.
